Libertarian Party USofA

Fully Informed Jury

courtin’ disaster

My wife’s news tidbit of the day was an NPR story this morning that the brown color in some “food product” was actually made from cow poop.

I don’t know if that is true or not, but my mind skips that discussion and jumps straight to the next step that will happenVS what should happen.

What will happen will NOT have any negative consequences for the people who decided to put cow poop in a product sold as food. Neither is it likely to compensate the people who paid for and consumed stuff they no longer consider to be good food.

No. Third and fourth parties who have no dog in the race at all will move a bunch of money around, put on a carefully orchestrated show in a cleverly built playhouse and end up transferring an unrelated large amount of money from ignorant stockholders into undeserving government agencies.

Actors in this theater advertised as a justice system will also receive disproportionate paychecks much like stars of various other entertainment forms in sports, music and legitimate theater.

The poop-eating peasants will go on about their daily chores. The people who made the decisions and participated in feeding poop to their customers will continue their current employment in the “food producing” industry. Future customers will pay slightly more for their products as the shareholders recover from the expense of putting on the show. The showmen will move on to their next production.

I don’t know exactly what justice would look like, but it would very directly involve the actual customers meeting the producers up-close and personal. Both would learn from the experience. Depending very directly on the level of the offense, it could even be the last lesson of the producer’s life.

Better still, all customers and all potential producers who heard about it first, second and third-hand would learn from the experience. Product quality overall goes up, consumer awareness improves and honorable producers rise to the top.

Why we have this gross, distorted system, in place of one that is effective, intelligent and just, comes down to one thing. In the language of the court actor’s guild:Cui bono?(as a benefit to whom?)

Truth is, the peasants allow it. The real guilt lies with the great mass of humanity who feel no pain, or for whom the pain they do feel is less than the pain of thinking about it.

Perhaps we are about to see what happens when the court (as in kings, bishops, lords and ladies) gets too greedy and the peasants finally wake up. While I dread it and fear it, there is much good that could come in the aftermath.

I would love to spend the last days of my life in a world where the people didn’t have to swallow any more crap.

selected quotations

Those who take the most from the table, teach contentment. Those for whom the taxes are destined, demand sacrifice. Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry, of wonderful times to come. Those who lead the country into the abyss, call ruling difficult, for ordinary folk.